Crippled Path
by Black Mushroom
Summary: There was a time when the past generation of shinobi were still young and untried by time. Amongst them was a blind boy, a Hyuuga reject determined to take a trip down the ninja road. Here is their story, the story of the past.


**Hello, folks! Thanks for clicking!**

**(Extended) Summary:** There was a time when the Uchiha clan was still around, when Konoha had not been ravaged by a Nine-Tailed Fox, when the parents of Naruto and the gang were still young and untried by the shinobi world. Well, with the exception of a Hyuuga, who had been given up due to his blindness. Little did they know how much potential he still held as a ninja. Instead of disappearing, he will leave his mark on the shinobi world. Without further ado, here is a fic about the past generation of shinobi.

**By the way, this has a really long description/intro/foreword. Feel free to skip right to the actual writing, but most of this is warnings, so you might want to read this anyway. Don't care about warnings? Head right along to Chapter 1: Gone By Sundown.**

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><p><strong>Disclaimer: Ugh, don't remind me (that I don't own even one gorgeous kunoichi...)<strong>

**Note: T****his story takes place a generation before canon Naruto **(mentioned this in the summary, but I'll mention it again). In other words, this is a story all about the parents of our beloved main characters. I figured I'd have some fun with people that don't get written about as often as the main characters. (I hope it works out...)

**Note #2: There's a lot of switching between POVs.** For those of you who don't know, POV stands for "point of view". There's a lot of characters involved in this fic, and it's just easier to have switches. To clarify, I'll mostly just switch when I change sections. I won't be switching in the middle of a section or anything like that unless it is "POV: Unknown". Even so, for some of you, that may be hard to get used to. For others, you might just not like it. Either way, if it bothers you when there's POV-switching a time or two (maybe more, depending on chapter length) every chapter, here's your warning.

**Note #3: A chunk of the main (and minor) characters are OCs. **I know a lot of you are tired of reading about Mary Sues and Gary Stus, so I actually worked pretty hard to make them interesting and imperfect. I will focus on the canon characters, but on the sidelines, I will put a lot of emphasis on my many OCs. Most of them are necessary characters, since some canon characters need parents and teams need senseis and missions need... well, weirdoes and the such; in addition, there certainly are some characters I just stick in there for no obligatory reason. They all play a pretty large part in the story, though of course, most are minor in comparison to the canon folk. If you don't like OCs no matter what and you'd probably hate this fic because of that, then I'm glad I warned you. If you think you'd be okay with a bunch of OCs popping up around your beloved Mikoto (Mikoto!) or Kushina or whatever canon character you care about, then I guess you can take a chance... maybe... hopefully?

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><p><strong>Gone By Sundown<strong>

**Twelve Years Ago - POV: None in Particular**

_The Hyuuga estate was a slice of heaven. The birds sang outside while a pair of two-month-old children watched from inside, completely enthralled in the blur of fluttering, slithering, and chirping around them. Another child sat quietly by himself, listening to languages of nature that he didn't yet understand. This child's eyes were closed, making him seem asleep as his small fingers awkwardly carressed the soft rug. None of the children had any idea that there was something terribly wrong with the child who had his eyes closed. None of them knew that they were not going to meet again until they were pit against each other, not knowing that the boy they just tried to kill was their own flesh and blood._

_Just outside the bliss that quarantined the triplets, the parents peered into the room through a barely opened door, talking in hushed voices._

_"A blind Hyuuga? Do you understand what a disgrace this is? He simply cannot stay."_

_The head of the family shook his head, left no room for argument. "Disgrace or not, he's our son. Casting him out would endanger the Byakugan and all of the Hyuugas, even if he cannot use it. If you truly want him gone, we will have to kill him."_

_His wife, despite being appalled by her husband's words, was going to argue whether there was room to do so or not. "No need. No one will be able to learn much from a broken Byakugan. They will learn even less if we keep him secret from the shinobi world."_

_"Even so, he is our son! He is a Hyuuga. Abandoning him would ruin the clan's reputation!" _

_"Forget 'us'. Forget the clan. Just think about _me _for once. Do you expect me to live knowing that a disgrace to the Hyuuga clan had spent nine months inside of me? How do you expect me to take good care of Hiashi and Hizashi when I must also worry about a blind son? That child does not deserve to be a Hyuuga, let alone to steal all that I'm supposed to be giving to Hiashi and Hizashi. How can you force me and your own children through that?"_

_"I..." The determination in his eyes went slack. He was only trying to be moral, to protect the clan and its name, but if that simple act would cost his wife so much..._

_"It's not just for me," she reminded him gently, raising a hand to cup his cheek. She knew it always calmed him down when she did that. She knew him far too well. "Hiashi and Hizashi will benefit too. The whole Hyuuga clan will benefit. He is the oldest, and if we keep him, it would naturally result in a blind, useless man in charge of the clan. If we just give him up, only one child instead of two will have to receive the curse mark."_

_"That is true..." He muttered. Eliminating a child who wouldn't survive as a ninja anyways seemed much smaller a sacrifice than binding more of his own children to servitude._

_"For himself too," she continued, glancing sadly into the room. "How will he live with himself if he is so worthless? We can't raise a crippled child in a shinobi environment, where he'll suffer because of his weakness. He cannot be a ninja, let alone a Hyuuga. It will be hard or him even to be a human. If we truly love him, then there is no other choice._

_"Giving him up is not wrong, love. Look at all that we are protecting in doing so."_

_The woman tilted her head slightly, eyeing __every tremor behind the white eyes of the man who loved her. She knew he would do anything for her. He would give up anything she told him to. Anything..._

_Determination returned to his colourless eyes, though for a different reason. "I'll send a messenger to that friend of mine in Suna. Sawa Togire. You probably know him as the husband of Sawa Akina. Either way, you know him, correct?"_

_"Sawa Togire? That cemetery watchman?" Her hands clasped in her lap as she struggled to remember the details of the hazy acquaintance. "Can he really be trusted with disposing of...?"_

_"Yes. He is the only civilian in Suna that I trust. I don't suppose we can entrust this to a ninja."_

_"...wasn't he a former ninja?"_

_"He lost an arm on a mission before he even made it to the Chuunin exams. Those puppeteers in Suna might've come up with some way to replace it if he were a Jounin, but a weak Genin was expendable." His voice was thick with sourness. "His life as a shinobi was over even before it truly began."_

_She bowed her head with respect to the tragedy even as she smiled inwardly with relief. Relief for herself, her clan, even for the unknowing, innocent child she was about to cast out. __A younger her would've never let herself abandon a child and live to tell the tale, but she was no longer young and stupid. This was a sacrifice of morality she must make. Even if meant that she must destroy a part of herself. Even if it meant that she will never have a perfect family, never be able to love all her children unconditionally. She should've known what was coming. As a shinobi, she would never be able to unconditionally love anyone, not ever her own children as she had hoped. She felt cheated. If there was no clan, no ninja world, then she would never have any reason to give up her child._

_It didn't matter how pained her heart felt as she looked back into her sons' room, knowing that one of them will be gone by sundown. She must do it, _they _must do it, even as a thread of morality unraveled in their hearts._

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><p><strong>So, how was it? That's just the prologuepreview type thingy so only a small fraction of the characters that will show up in this story have shown their face at this point. I promise the next chapter, whenever it comes, will have a lot more characters, largely canon (with, of course, random OCs to fill necessary roles that can't be filled with canon folk). The next chapter will also take place in the present, just thought you'd like to know...**

**In case you're wondering what happens to the blind boy once he is shipped off to Suna... well, don't look at me as if _I_ would know. It's kind of obvious anyway, but I'm still curious to see how many of you would be spot-on. Take a guess if you feel like it.**

**I'd really love it if you'd review, but if you just subscribe or something (because you're lazy like me...) I'll still jump up and down with joy. All I really need at this point is to know whether or not people would be interested in seeing this story continue. So... pretty please with chibi-Sasuke on top?**


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